Ronald Turnbull

Ronald Turnbull is based in southern Scotland, midway between Arrochar and Ambleside. He has a particular interest in multi-day backpack trips over rough country, summit sleep-outs, and the rocks and geology underfoot. He has completed 21 different coast-to-coast journeys across various parts of the UK and slept out without a tent on over 90 different UK summits. As well as the UK hills in all their wonderful variety, he enjoys hot, rocky, and preferably Spanish-speaking corners of Europe, and makes occasional hikes through the USA.

He has won the Outdoor Writers’ and Photographers’ Guild Award for Excellence eight times in four separate categories. In 1995 he won the Fell Running Association’s Long Distance Trophy for a 10-day run over all the hills of Southern Scotland – a journey of 450 miles with over 90,000 ft of ascent. He completed the 24-hour Bob Graham Round of 42 Lakeland summits in 1994.

His books include The Book of the Bivvy (on the art of tentless travel) and Walking in the Southern Uplands, a guide to the 44 best hill routes. He writes regularly in Lakeland Walker, and also writes for TGO (The Great Outdoors), Trail, Cumbria and others. Among his recent books Battle Valleys is an account of the Border Country in words and pictures and Granite & Grit a study of the UK’s mountain rocks.